I'm currently a Mate 9 user with its stock Android. As I'm very old, my mobile phone use is quite modest. I use it as a phone, sometimes. I mainly use it to read ebooks (epub, pdf, never drm). When traveling, I use its gps in conjunction with Osmand (openstreetmap offline maps, local storage). And, mainly when traveling, I use it to have a browser, to buy train tickets and such. I also use it for the bus tracker in my city.

Because of the main use as a book reading device, I needed the phone to be large (pdfs).

With the recent news of governments potentially in the near future mandating the installation of tracking apps on IPhones and Android phones, and some recent news of google and apple building this into their OSes, I began re-considering my phone.

My thought was: if I have a phone that's neither Android nor IPhone, nobody can demand such an installation.

Looking around the actual (non-Android) Linuxes on phones (the current hotness seems to be postmarketOS), my Mate 9 isn't supported.

For work, I have to have a mobile phone, to be able to receive the blighted 2factor auth calls from MS. But it could potentially be a dumb-phone.

Also, potentially, a dedicated reader could deal with my book reading requirements. A non sim-card device.

But I really do want a large smartphone for the openstreetmap application, which involves gps.

I'd like to be able to continue using my Mate 9, if possible.

So I'm wondering, if I go for an Android ROM such as Replicant, to what extent I would be able to subvert mandated tracking. Would it count as a non-Android phone, regarding the installation of unwanted tracking apps? And would I be able to completely turn off connectivity, while having the phone on, and using it as a reader. And ideally while having gps on and using it with offline maps?

Or is all that hopeless and I should go for a proper Linux like Pinephone, while giving up on the screen size I wanted?

I carry a camera - occasionally I use it as a phone. When used as the former it doesn't need a sim.
If you install a custom ROM and don't install the google apps, particularly play store, you have to be "unknown". But IANAL. We are potentially facing the same issue - I wouldn't trust the bastards as far as I could kick them.

I keep an offline reader and an old (but updated) garmin gps device. Let 'em flounder in their own ignorance.

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I've been considering moving back to a dumb flip-phone, this may be the event to push me that way. I don't really need the extras that I sometimes use.

What will they do, mandate the use of smartphones? Or just go straight for biometric bracelets or RFID chips?

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I don't think I'd have a problem with a flip if a smartphone gets too out of hand. The PinePhone looks more appealing though. Last update said they're up to +15 hour battery life on standby(with LTE/Bluetooth on) and most features working(via ubports). I'm seriously thinking about ordering one myself. Since parts for the entire phone will be available https://store.pine64.org/?product_ca...ne-spare-parts supposedly even Braveheart backers can upgrade to the latest revision when the parts come available.

The Librem 5 isn't even competition yet. I haven't see any "in the wild end-user" videos yet. Sure there are several videos but those are either from purism or people reviewing the phone sent by purism for that reason. At only 3hr battery life... And come on, We don't need an Apple or Google replacement. We just need affordable hardware, there's plenty of mobile OS's out there already.



[RANT]
To early to tell but you can rest assured most people will be cheering this on. And the people resisting this will be so unreasonable and stupid. After all we need to get this virus controlled, even if it means micro controlling the people. Gates is probably grinning from ear to ear, since this "experiment" sure is working well for his agenda...

[/RANT]

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It is impossible to turn off tracking on any device that can connect to GPS/Cell Tower, regardless of os. Unless of course it has physical killswitches that completely remove power to the modem or if it has a removable battery. Makes you wonder why most batteries aren't removable...

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>> What will they do, mandate the use of smartphones?

The vague news I've seen went along the lines of "goverments might mandate the installation of c*** tracking apps".

Clearly they can't mandate that everyone has to carry a smartphone. But equally, it's not clear how they'd be able to actually make the installation of tracking apps happen, even on the smartphones people do have. AFAIK, auto updating on Android phones doesn't work reliably, but I'm not knowledgable about Android so I'd be interested in hearing how that might work.

Certainly would work for phones that people get with their contracts from carriers. But even for those, what about the existing, already deployed phones?

What about people who like myself buy their own hardware? I suppose one way would be to just exclude the people who want to use their own hardware from the networks.

As outlined in "Known-Traveller-Digital-Identity-Programm" , a likely way would be to just make life harder for people who don't 'opt-in', basically make them wait in queues and so on.

Of course, triangulation based tracking associated with the phone number happens when you carry a mobile phone (even dumbphone), that's 'on'. In the UK, at least some time ago, it was still possible to buy and top up sim cards with cash, but in other places that's already not the case.

Typically I would want to carry a smartphone (or similar) that has gps, so that I can use the voice call and web functionality when I want to, but also be able to actually turn if off. On a nowadays-phone like mine, you can't take out the battery.

So my question regarding rooting and ROMs like Replicant, also pertains to the use of Flight Mode, and maybe turning if off (something I'd have to get used to, I rarely do it). I.e., is Flight Mode with an OS like Replicant really sim-off, or is that in question?

>> It is impossible to turn off tracking on any device that can connect to GPS/Cell Tower,

Agreed, regarding cell tower.
But regarding GPS, the way I understand how that works, this shouldn't be the case.

So really what I'm after is to be able to have gps on, to use it in conjunction with offline map data, while at the same time NOT being connected to the cell tower.

I really doubt it can be done currently. Even the PinePhone turns off the GPS when you disable LTE since it's in the same module and the switch disconnects power. The Librem 5 has even less control. Still much better than a non-removable battery phone. Short of a stand-alone GPS, or something custom, there's not much choice.

As far as custom, it depends how desperate a person was... A Rasberry Pi can be extended to use GPS and since there are already phone projects based on that platform it might work for some. However I'd dare say they would have to very desperate to use something like that

It is my understanding that nothing short of removing the battery will make phones untrackable. Some go so far as to say even powering off the phone is not enough.

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Pinephone thus, with removable battery, sounds increasingly attractive, even with the limitation:
>> Even the PinePhone turns off the GPS when you disable LTE

I wonder, could you take the sim-card out and still use gps? Or would you still be tracked in that case?

As a possible alternative, I'm thinking, maybe a small tablet which has gps but no phone functionality...

Just power off the phone when not in use. Nowadays, no-one expects a human to answer the phone. A nice benefit is that the battery will last for months on a charge.
Ed

Tracking a turned off phone might not be easy but it's possible. Who knows, maybe in the latest phones it's really easy. Here's some older links:


https://techpp.com/2013/08/22/track-phone-turned-off/

https://slate.com/technology/2013/07...urned-off.html

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The battery drain would be noticeable.

My Moto G4 Play was the last of the series to have a removable battery. It may have just become more valuable.
Ed

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They'll simply mandate you have to have it on. Have a read of this.

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That is truly scary.
Ed

My thought is: nobody can legally enforce this, full stop.
But of course there might be differences depending which country you live in.
You don't specify, so I assume USA - might be a problem there.

Generally speaking: most so-called "alternative" mobile phone OSs are based on Android anyhow, and compatible app-wise.
As long as it's possible to install the app you don't win by changing OSs.

So you need to look at distinctly non-Android (not AOSP-based) mobile OSs - afaik that's Ubuntu Touch and Sailfish OS these days, nothing more.

BTW, neither Pinephone nor Librem5 will become usable before this crisis is over.
Ubuntu Touch and Sailfish OS OTOH are very much usable on a limited choice of devices.

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